


Black coffee and Mint tea

by Baryshnikov



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Blood, Coffee Shops, Crushes, Dark, F/M, Falling In Love, Hybristophilia, Implied/Referenced Murder, Infatuation, M/M, Morally Grey Harry Potter, Murder, Naive Harry Potter, Obsession, Power Dynamics, Regret, Serial Killers, autassassinophilia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2019-12-27 01:09:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18293774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baryshnikov/pseuds/Baryshnikov
Summary: When Harry first met Tom, he'd never encountered anyone like him before, he later discovered there was a sinister reason for that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, this was never supposed to be this long.

Harry could sit forever by the window of his favourite coffee shop, just watching the world go by. From the only window seat, he could see the world from a different perspective, he could sip his tea, never the same flavour as the day before, ever so slow and just enjoy being a background character in everyone else’s narratives. This particular coffee shop, which he seemed to patronise so regularly was small on the outside, unassuming, no one would go in unless they already knew how good it was. So, it was usually pleasantly quiet and filled with only the regular crowd. Harry wouldn’t claim to know them all by name, but he certainly recognised almost everybody sitting or standing between the chairs, and he was sure they too recognised him. It being so small, somehow meant they all had _their_ seats. Everyone knew when everyone else would be there, and where they would sit, if they would sit at all. Such organised precision was both calming and boring. Harry was by no means the type of person who craved adrenaline like caffeine, he didn’t need a constant stream of entertainment to keep him satisfied, but just lately, his peoplewatching had become dull. People all seemed to be the same, dressed in black, walking with their umbrellas and sullen faces. Where was excitement to be had in watching a hundred similar people flash past in the rain? There wasn’t really one, which was probably why Harry still remembered the day, clear as anything, that it had all changed. It had been raining, and the window was steamed up, streaked with sliding droplets of cold water. The streets were still busy though, and the people on them were busy too. Harry had been watching the hundreds of dark suits pass by his window seat, seeing how they rushed, and how perfectly it juxtaposed how still he sat. But it was uninspiring, just people and umbrellas doing the same thing that they always did. His mind had just begun to think of moving off, of going home or perhaps finding a more mediocre café in the station where there were always new people to watch. He’d got as far as folding up the newspaper that he always brought but never read and was preparing to swallow down the last of his drink, when he saw him, someone new. 

~

New people were so rare that everyone inclined their heads ever so slightly when the bell tinkled, and the door shut with a slight slam, a small gust of col air filtering through the café. For most people, the glance was casual, a mere observation before they returned to their own little lives, for Harry though, it was different. This newcomer had been different. From his view Harry had only been able to see the back of this stranger’s head, he could only see a nice coat collar and dark hair and the edge of a jawline. It was enough though, enough to keep him watching for an inappropriate length of time. Though Harry did manage to catch himself just in time when the stranger turned around and passed his gaze over the room, looking for a spare seat. There was one, in the corner, where an old man had used to sit, before he stopped coming and, everyone assumed, he had died. No one had sat there since, as though it would bring bad luck, but Harry supposed it was time to recommission it for new users. He kept watching as the stranger placed his drink down, and although there was increasing pressure in his head to look away, to stop his encroaching of a stranger’s life, he couldn’t, because this was stranger was unlike anyone Harry had ever seen before. _This stranger_ was handsome in way that defied normal expectations, somehow, he was _more_ than simply attractive, _more_ than simple good-looking. It was a painful sort of beauty that seemed to cut right into his skin and leave stinging little slits. The sort that had him aching and become sorely aware of how he was very much alone in his own life. Even from this distance, even when the stranger wasn’t even looking directly at him, his eyes appeared so dark, black spaces in the dull light of the corner seat. He was the definition of mysterious, of desirable for no other reason than he was stranger in a place where strangers never came. Harry watched his stranger drink his single black coffee and read a book that title looked long, complicated and distinctly not English. He could have watched him all day, how slow and careful and not at all busy he was. Every movement was considered, the effort weighed against the benefit, the need compared to the exertion that it would take. Just watching him made Harry feel clumsy and awkward and so obviously hooked on this stranger’s image. 

~

It was frankly embarrassing how hopeful he was when he next sat down in his usual spot. Harry knew he should not have got so invested in a stranger he had seen once, life was after all, not, a modern-day fairy tale where you met your true love in a coffee shop and then somehow lived happily ever after. Life was much more bitter, as it had proven to him time and time again. Harry had had too many recent rejections and failures to truly believe in love anymore. Perhaps it was cynical, but scepticism had its merits, being sceptical meant lurking in the shadows, it made avoiding possibilities because that was easier than getting hurt, it meant not getting hopes up only for them to be crushed over and over again. But for all his attempts at scepticism, Harry was a romantic at heart, a believer in true love right to his core, and it hurt to be bitter. It hurt to turn people he didn’t think were serious down, but he couldn’t survive anything casual anymore. Too many single nights and single loves that always broke his heart in the morning had taken its toll. That was why he liked to see and watch the people who seemed to be happy, like that sweet couple that was always in for coffee every Wednesday. They sat by the door and smiled and seemed to be in love. Harry hoped they were, hoped they wouldn’t break each other’s hearts for momentary satisfaction because it wouldn’t be worth it.  
He was distracted by the sound of the door and the noise of the outside world temporarily invading the quiet, he looked at his watch and then over at the door expecting to see a gaggle of college students complaining about nothing in particular, but it wasn’t, it was his stranger.  
Harry tried not to be too obvious as he craned his neck to get another look, to confirm to himself that this was definitely the same man who’d been in before. It was, no one else had such a gorgeous face and such a confidence when they walked. Well, at least, Harry didn’t, he shuffled where this stranger seemed to sweep with all the elegance in the world. He continued to watch him as the stranger went to the counter, smiling politely and pointing at something on the chalkboard on the wall. the barista nodding and smiling, making far more than just polite conversation and stranger smiling back before reaching out his hand and introducing himself, “Tom.” The name seemed to echo around the walls and ring around Harry’s head. It really shouldn’t have because it was just a name, it wasn’t even particularly unusual, Harry knew plenty of Toms and none of them were particularly interesting. But there was something different about this Tom. Maybe it was the way he extracted himself from the barista before heading straight back into the corner and taking out a different book to before and opening a notebook and starting to write.  
Harry tried to go back to window-watching. Back to staring at the cold world outside, steeped in the blues and greys of early spring, but his gaze was always drawn back to the warmth radiating from the corner. Always drawn back to Tom as he read, the flicking of his pages feeling so loud in the quiet café, the scratching of his pen so deafeningly loud amongst the bubble of low conversations. Harry didn’t realise he was openly staring until Tom looked up and caught him. Their eyes met and Harry would have sworn Tom smiled. 

~

Harry saw Tom more often then, and although he usually came in alone, sometimes he was accompanied by a redhaired girl he always called Ginevra, which seemed too formal for someone who was so obviously his girlfriend. It was a disappointing turn of events, but there was no crime in watching from afar, even if Harry was watching what he really wanted, but couldn’t have. Mostly, Ginevra came in sometime later than Tom, always far too fresh-faced to have come from anywhere other than the sports centre. To give her due credit she was pretty, athletic, strong, gorgeous, and also very much Harry’s type; perhaps he should have been grateful he got to get to see them together. But he wasn’t. It made him disappointed that Tom was spoken for. He’d honestly hoped the first time she wandered in and smiled at Tom, who was sitting in his usual corner table, that maybe she was just a friend. That hope was all but obliterated when she walked over, with the confidence of someone who knows they have the most attractive partner in the room; and leaned over to kiss him in the most sickening display of affection Harry had ever witnessed in public. He still watched though. Observed how Tom’s mouth moved against hers, how he touched her hand when she sat down and started sipping her vegan latte, how they laughed with each other. A young couple so perfectly in love. From across the room, Harry formed an entire life for them: she was an athlete, probably a dancer, he was in finance or maybe politics; they made enough money to live expensive, attractive lives, they probably had a cat and one day they’d probably have a baby to complete their perfect family. But however much he tried to ignore it, there felt something wrong between them. Maybe it was just his jealousy talking, but they didn’t look right together. They were certainly both attractive, but Tom was much more classical, a Roman sort of beauty that would outlast everyone; in contrast, Ginevra was more of an idol, completely iconic in one decade but forgotten in the next. When he looked for long enough, they just didn’t seem to fit together, she was besotted, completely in love, but Tom’s eyes never smiled, even when he kissed her. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised therefore that after a few weeks of her always being there, she suddenly wasn’t, and Tom didn’t seem to be particularly upset about it. Harry tried to be, but he couldn’t, not as the weeks wore on, and it became increasingly obvious Tom had become single. Perhaps he would have been more sympathetic if he’d actually read the paper he always brought, then he’d have learnt up-and-coming sports star Ginny Weasley had been missing for a month. 

~

After Ginevra, and even before, the only other person to accompany Tom was a pretentious blond he called Abraxas. He usually arrived before Tom, ordered their drinks and sat in the corner playing with his phone, just waiting. Somehow, everything about Abraxas was similar and yet the exact opposite of Tom. Where Tom was dark and mysterious, Abraxas was light and with everything written on his sleeve. His very presence suggested old money and a name that went back to the dark ages. It was confirmed the second he opened his mouth; his accent was the sort of thing that you only got by never associating with anyone of ‘lower calibre’, not to mention his fancy clothes that always seemed to have some sort of label that he ever so casually dropped into conversation, and, of course, the way he just looked down on everyone, an utter distaste for the real people of the world. Another contrast to be made was that Abraxas was excessive, a little bit too much, in every sense of the word. Whilst Tom was modest and ascetic in everything he did, Abraxas was openly immoderate and painfully indulgent. His favourite thing was apparently to order drinks that made Tom physically recoil. Coffee laced with enough sugar to kill a man had satisfied whatever Abraxas had been hoping to achieve for a while, but as soon as Tom seemed to get used to it, he switched. Watching them the last time they’d come in together, Tom had looked disgusted and Abraxas had looked ridiculously smug. Between them had been a hot chocolate, specially requested and frightfully expensive. Well, Abraxas had called it a hot chocolate, but it had been mutated thanks to the addition of caramel, and cream, and fudge pieces, and chocolate sauce, and sprinkles, and marshmallows, until it barely resembled what any ordinary person could call a hot chocolate. It was what Harry imagined a heart attack would look like if it were a drink, not that Abraxas seemed to care. All he wanted to do was wind Tom up, and if that apparently involved drinking a large mug of hot chocolate in less than two minutes without breaking eye contact, then that is what he would do. To be honest though, Harry was only really watching Tom, watching how he smiled but rolled his eyes, how he glared but didn’t do anything to stop Abraxas when their hands met. Perhaps it was wrong, but it still gave him hope that maybe, just maybe, Tom could be interested in him. 

~

Harry knew for certain that he was really pathetic, and had a hopeless crush when he found himself at his coffee shop on a Saturday. Normally he never went out on a Saturday, he never went anywhere on a Saturday, but today he had ventured out with the feeling that he might just see Tom. The shop was busier on a Saturday, not uncomfortably like the more commercial option was further down the street, but definitely more so than he was used to. Though for all his complaints, Harry still managed to get his usual window seat, most other people here were here to avoid the crowds and to enjoy being anonymous, so none of them liked to sit where they supposed others could gawk.  
It was clear outside today, and there were families out and about enjoying their day. Harry supposed it was nice to have someone to walk out with, someone to just talk to when he got lonely, which seemed to be a lot. Harry slowly drank his mint tea, too slowly really because by the last few gulps it was cold. When the old clock on the wall above the counter, past four and the mid-afternoon rush seemed to be at its peak, Harry considered leaving, he hadn’t seen Tom and whether he would admit it to himself or not, Tom was his _only_ reason for having ventured out here at all. He couldn’t really deny the presence of his crush, but he could certainly ignore it and pretend that it didn’t exist. He was just preparing to leave, finishing the last his tea and fumbling with his coat, when he felt a presence standing too close.  
“Would you mind if I sat here?”  
Harry looked up, Tom was standing, elegantly holding a coffee and looking at the empty space opposite him. Harry nodded, his tongue suddenly being more than a little uncooperative. As Tom sat down, Harry glanced over to his usual seat, it was occupied by a woman who usually came in alone, but today seemed to have brought her friends, and the seat she usually occupied had become inappropriate.  
“Thank you,” said Tom, sliding into the space and placing his coffee and his bag and his book, all down on the table, all straight and in perfect order. Harry watched him for too long and Tom seemed to be aware, for when he looked up, he smiled. It was such a perfect smile that made Harry’s insides feel like they were melting, liquifying into a mess he’d have to scrape back together later. For want of anything better, but unwilling to buy himself another drink, Harry fiddled with his phone for a while. Just swiping back and forth between two screens, doing nothing but catching surreptitious glances of Tom, as he wrote notes in the margin with long fluid handwriting. Harry had to wonder why that was the adjective his brain supplied, could handwriting be fluid? He didn’t know, but nor did he care, because Tom was sitting opposite him. 

~

The next time he went to the coffee shop, Harry couldn’t see Tom, and his heart sunk just a little. He stayed though, he had nothing better to do today. But as he was making his way towards his usual space, he saw that it was already occupied. He stopped a few feet from the seat and stared, Tom was sitting in the same place he had been the last time he’d been here. He was looking just as perfect as ever, the same cup of strong black coffee sitting in front of him and still writing in that notebook. When he looked up and saw Harry staring, he smiled and gestured to the seat opposite him.  
“I hope you don’t mind me sitting here, it’s nicer than the corner.”  
Harry nodded dumbly, just staring at the way the light through the window coloured the corners of Tom’s face with blue. A cobalt gleam that came from the sun hanging heavy amongst the grey clouds, it sharpened all his features in a way that would have been too intense for most people but on him somehow looked natural.  
“I’m Tom by the way,” he said, raising his hand, Harry shook it, it was hot, not just warm but almost blistering in a way that seemed entirely unnatural.  
“Oh sorry, I like my coffee hot and the mug tends to get hot as well,” said Tom dropping his hand but immediately returning it to his mug, which was just filled with the usual plain, black coffee with a twirl of steam rising up and fogging the glass. “Ah,” Harry said, nodding as well, it was too much, but he needed to convince himself he was a part of this conversation. That Tom was really sitting there in front of him.  
“And you are?” said Tom, moving some of his paraphernalia that was spread in perfectly ordered chaos across the table so that Harry could comfortably place his own tea down.  
“Harry.”  
“Pleasure to meet you, Harry.”  
Tom had a way of saying his name that was intoxicating, it rolled over his tongue and slid out of his mouth in a way that was borderline erotic. Harry wished he’d say it again, and again, and maybe never stop.  
“What are you drinking?” Tom said when Harry said nothing else, and the two of them were just sitting looking at each other like teenagers on a first date, which was really an unhelpful description that Harry wished he hadn’t thought of. It dogged his brain with possibilities which were not realities and distracted him from what Tom had asked. Harry looked down at the cup, for a second, trying to compute what was in it, “tea,” he managed eventually, internally scolding himself because Tom didn’t look like the sort of person who hung around with idiots.  
“What type?” he said, with a surprising amount of patience. Harry continued to look down at the cup, it seemed to look back up at him, condemning him for his hopelessness. The tea was a rusty colour, with a swirl of milk he had not yet stirred, no strong aroma to help him out.  
“Vanilla orange spice,” he said reading the receipt that sat on the saucer. Tom nodded, apparently oblivious to the intricacies of tea flavours, and Harry was hardly surprised, not from someone who drank scaling black coffee that perfumed the entire immediate area.  
Another awkward silence came over them, Tom having asked too many questions to ask another, and Harry having said too little to be satisfactory. “What are you reading?” Harry said starting to sip his tea despite it being too hot because he _had_ to do something with his hands or they would tap on the table and Tom would see how nervous he was.  
“Theatrum Chemicum,” said Tom, absently running his fingers over the title.  
“Never heard of it, what is it?” he asked, anything to keep this conversation going, to show Tom that he could be interesting and that he had no reason to go back to the corner. Tom only smiled that gorgeous smile and started to explain.  
Harry honestly didn’t take in much of what Tom was saying, it was all old medieval writings, none of them in English. The importance of alchemy in the Medieval world, its applications now, the search for an elixir nobody seemed to be able to find. Harry didn’t need to understand it, all that mattered was Tom was talking to him, taking his time to work from the beginning, forming his words so slowly, choice and precise so that he’d understand. He could have sat and listened to Tom talk forever. 

~

The world seemed brighter as Harry entered the coffee shop and immediately saw the wisps of Tom’s hair sitting in their usual spot again. They’re had several conversations now, Harry always asking something about what Tom was reading, because he never came in with the same book twice, and Tom taking this time to explain the answer. It always did something so pleasant to his heart when he listened to Tom. He made it feel lighter, made all the grey of the day fade away and reveal the colours that had been hidden for so long beneath. Though today his heart fell, and the grey returned to the edges of his vision when he saw that Tom wasn’t alone. Abraxas was there sitting next to him, an eyebrow raised and looking very judgemental. As he ordered, smiling at the barista, but not making conversation, he heard snippets of their conversation, or at least what Abraxas was saying, because Abraxas always spoke too loudly.  
“…You can hardly expect recognition, not if you keep hiding them away, I mean, how is anybody supposed to find her?” Tom said something then that he couldn’t hear, and Abraxas seemed to reply with an irritated sigh and dramatically slumping back in the chair.  
Harry briefly considered sitting elsewhere today, but he wanted to see Tom, more than see, he wanted to hear him talk, listen and just stare at God’s perfect creations. So, with a deep breath, he approached his usual seat. As he did so he heard Abraxas again. “…And what about him. Come on, Riddle, he’s hardly the type, what if…” Abraxas shut his mouth as soon as he saw Harry. Instead, he just raked his eyes over him in the most hypercritical way possible, taking in every single flaw and imperfection. A slight sneer appeared at his mouth, and he didn’t say anything as he got up to leave, fingers lingering for too long on Tom’s shoulder as he did so.  
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”  
Tom nodded but not especially enthusiastically, “yeah, sounds good.”  
Together they both watched as Abraxas walked across the shop, shoes almost clicking against the floor. As soon as he was gone, Tom gestured politely to the usual seat opposite. “Ignore him, he’s that resentful of everyone, there’s no point wasting your time in being offended by it.”  
“Oh,” said Harry dumbly, taking a seat. “How did you meet him?”  
“Abraxas? We were on the same course at university, and stayed in touch afterwards, might as well when we both stayed in the city.”  
“Oh,” Harry said again, wondering where his vocabulary had gone, where it always went when Tom was around. It shouldn’t have surprised him that Tom was university educated, he should have been able to guess by the way he carried himself, the extensive vocabulary, the scent of self-betterment that stained the air around him. What surprised him more was that both Tom and Abraxas appeared to think they could gain something from their relationship. In the few short times, he’d seen them together, Harry had always thought Abraxas was too emotional, too dramatic, too agitated to provide Tom with the solace he seemed to crave. It wasn’t like _their_ times together. For when it was just him and Tom, it was calm and pleasant and far more peaceful. Harry stopped his train of thought there, he had to stop comparing himself, putting himself in that place by Tom’s side because Tom had never invited him into it, and what was the point about being jealous if Tom didn’t even like him like that.  
“He just doesn’t seem much like you,” Harry said, a filler statement, for lack of anything else to say.  
“Oh, he’s not. If anything, Abraxas is a brat through and through, but he’s quite an entertaining brat, so we forgive him his misdemeanours. Mint?” he said, changing the subject with a single hand signalling Harry’s mug. Since they’d started talking Tom had gotten marginally better at recognising teas, though he still refused to drink it, always ordering the same black coffee.  
“Yeah, the sun was out.”  
“And so, you drink mint?” asked Tom, his head tipped to the side in the way Harry had learnt he did whenever he was trying to understand something.  
Harry shrugged, “yeah, I always drink mint when the sun’s out.”  
“That sounds restrictive.”  
“I prefer sentimental,” he said taking a sip, and feeling the sun on his face like he had even before he met Tom.  
“Then what’s the sentiment behind it?” said Tom, resting his chin in his palm and letting the sun stain his face with new highlights and fill his eyes with a honey-glow.  
Harry swallowed, he didn’t normally tell people because most people weren’t interested. “Everyone said my parents liked mint tea when it was sunny, and I never met them, so I suppose it brings us closer in a way.”  
Tom smiled that deep genuine smile that always made Harry’s heart flutter as though it was made of butterflies, “that’s very sweet,” he said keeping his honey-eyes on his own.  
“I could be lying.”  
“But you’re not, and that just makes it sweeter.” Harry hoped the sun was hiding his blush because the last thing in the world he wanted was for Tom to realise just how much he liked him.

~

It wasn’t dark outside, but it was getting there. The streetlights turning on, and the headlights of cars dimmed but still bright. They’d been here longer today, longer than any time before and Harry didn’t really want to leave. For all he could do was go home, back to his apartment and sit alone, staring aimlessly at the TV. Here was so much better because it had Tom. Tom smiling, Tom laughing, Tom talking. Always about art or politics or philosophy or something like that, things Harry wasn’t really listening to, he was far too busy watching Tom’s mouth form syllables and wondering what it would be like to kiss him. He was so far in his thoughts that he didn’t realise Tom had stopped talking and he was still nodding along.  
“Am I boring you?” said Tom, though he didn’t sound like he meant it. Harry’s snapped his head up. “Sorry.”  
“Don’t apologise, but if I am boring you, do say.” Tom continued to watch him, clearly waiting for a reply as he sipped his coffee, which only just drinkable by normal standards, but Tom seemed to like everything scalding.  
“You’re not boring,” Harry said, his fingers fiddling with his own empty cup, “it’s – I just – I like the way you talk.” Harry could feel his face heating under the lights, that seemed to glow so warm against the darkening sky.  
“Well, I’m flattered. But what exactly is it about the way I talk that you like?” Tom paused to lean a little closer, arms resting on the table, “indulge me, is my accent? My diction? My enunciation? Perhaps my vocabulary?”  
Harry swallowed, the way Tom was looking at him, so intently, so interested, no one had looked at him like that for such a long time and it just made his heart curl in on itself. “All of it I guess.”  
“Why?”  
“You – you just sound so educated.”  
“And you like that?”  
Harry paused, he’d never thought of it like that, well that was a lie. He had very much thought of it like that, thought of listening to Tom saying all sorts of wonderful things, praises and prayers and everything in between whilst he kissed him in the light of a street lamp with the stars their only witness. But he wasn’t about to share that, so he nodded. “It goes with the rest of you.”  
“By which you mean?”  
“You know, the way you are. All polished, and cultured, and accomplished, and handsome.” Harry heard himself trail off, knowing he’d said a little too much and blushing furiously, but Tom didn’t seem to mind.  
“You think I’m handsome?” he said if anything leaning closer.  
“Well – erm – I mean I – erm – I suppose…”  
Tom smiled and in Harry’s confusion, he leaned over and pressed his lips to the corner of Harry’s mouth. It was gentle and soft and perfect. Harry could have kept on kissing him, even if everyone could see, but Tom sat back with amusement, smiling at the embarrassingly pink blush that Harry could feel spilling everywhere.  
“You’re pretty when you blush,” he said, which only made Harry blush harder, “thanks,” he said, not entirely sure if that was the appropriate response, but it made Tom smile, so it was probably fine.  
“You’re very welcome, Harry.”  
His heart flipped itself again, and Harry was sure for as long as he lived no one would ever say his name quite as Tom did. No one could ever say it quite so perfectly. But at the moment there was silence for what felt like a second too long, and Harry fought the urge to look away from Tom’s eyes and stare out at the safety of the half-lighted world outside the window. He didn’t though, instead he stared at Tom, stared at every perfect line. “I think you’re gorgeous, Tom,” he said, biting his lip the second it left his mouth, unsure where the sudden bravery had come from, but very regretting it. Somehow, handsome could be played off as stating a conventional attractiveness, but gorgeous felt much more personal.  
But Tom was smiling, “I’m glad to hear that, after all, perceptions of beauty are relative, for all I know you could have found me – quite unappealing every time we met– ”  
“I don’t,” Harry blurted out in a way that felt desperate and awkward and seemed to sum him up so well.  
Tom laughed, “well thank you. However, I feel as like you’re complimenting me far more than I am complimenting you.” Tom leaned closer again, pushing his coffee to the side and letting his hands hover just above the wood of the table. “Though, if you’d let me, I’d be ever so willing to show my commendations of _you_.”  
Harry felt his insides squeeze as Tom’s hand came to rest on his, his fingers were hot, again almost blistering from holding his coffee cup. “Would you like that?”  
“Like what?” Harry asked, he thought he knew, but clarification could never be a bad thing, all his friends said his relationships always failed because there really wasn’t enough communication.  
Tom smiled and tipped his head to the side. “I’m asking if you’d like to come home with me, Harry? To get – better acquainted.” The way he seemed to say it, suggested that it wasn’t quite an invitation, more a direct command, and Harry was almost ashamed that he had no reservations about that. He knew Tom, he liked Tom, he wanted Tom. Anyway, it was a suggestion that absolutely reeked of carnal insinuations, and Harry would very be lying if he said he wasn’t interested in Tom like _that_.  
Tom’s eyes slowly dragged over him, waiting for an answer, “so, Harry, will you be joining me?”  
He should say no, he should say he was busy, but Tom was so tempting, and he might not get another invitation, and it was just too good an opportunity to turn down, “yes,” he said. 

~

Tom’s apartment was dark and smaller than Harry had expected, Tom might dress and act expensively but apparently, he wasn’t rich. Not that Harry actually got the opportunity to examine much of the apartment because as soon as the door was shut Tom was pushing him against the wall, not even bothering to turn on the light. The way Tom kissed him was ever so slow, careful, controlled, just like everything else in his life; it was smooth and elegant and apparently completely effortless. Fluid, like Tom wasn’t even substance in the world, and was instead a mere mist, or a liquid sliding through the cracks. None of that mattered though, all that was important now, was that Tom was kissing him and it felt good. Everything that Tom did felt so good, even if it was just a touch too sharp. Precise fingers digging into his skin and undoing the buttons on his jeans. As Tom’s fingers dragged beneath his underwear, Harry’s heart slowed until it was a relentless thudding echoing around his head, he wasn’t ashamed to admit, Tom was the most attractive person who’d ever offered to kiss his mouth, who’d ever smirked just like that and mouthed at his neck, who’d ever murmured genuine filth in his ears and started to get to his knees. Harry swallowed thickly and let his head drop back against the wall, watching someone as gorgeous as Tom getting to their knees for someone as average as him was little overwhelming, not to mention that in the blackness of the apartment he could see very little of anything, so, he was just standing there in the dark, feeling Tom’s mouth around him, and biting his own lip to stop himself moaning out loud.  
He wouldn’t say it, but Harry wanted to curl his fingers into Tom’s hair, drag him forward and force him to go faster, but something stopped him. Tom’s hair was so pristine, and compared to it his hands felt lumbering, his fingers inept to touch such a gorgeous person. Tom detached himself for a second and looked up, his face barely visible in the gloom. “I’m not going to break if you want to touch me,” he said, just a voice somewhere in the dark, before sliding his tongue in such a way that Harry hand involuntarily clenched around several of Tom’s curls. He was rewarded with the drag of Tom’s mouth back and forth and the gleam of large liquid eyes, so dark they melted into the black. For just a second, when Tom’s tongue was being too gentle, Harry thought that he might be crazy, that Tom was genuinely a stranger that he was letting do obscene things to him in the dark of an apartment he didn’t know. But that thought was short-lived as Tom rolled his tongue, his mouth impossibly warm and impossibly wet and just absolutely perfect. Harry could feel the curling in his stomach far too fast, a product of Tom’s slack remorselessness, it was a constant squeezing as though there was a snake inside him, curling itself tighter and tighter just waiting to strike. Harry felt his body jolt, orgasm spilling over before he could say anything, and he came with his fingers twisted painfully tight in Tom’s hair.  
“Sorry,” he said, feeling breathless and embarrassed. The slow spreading heat of a heavy flush dispersing itself over his face and down his neck.  
“Oh, don’t be,” said Tom standing gracefully, elegant fingers wiping his mouth. He sounded too calm, too collected, too in control, but also so gorgeous with those dark eyes and red mouth, “I take it as a compliment. Anyway,” he smiled, “it’s not like I’ve finished with you.” Despite Tom’s smile of reassurance, something felt slightly off in the curve of his mouth, like there was something sinister just below the surface. It made a cold knot form in the base of Harry’s stomach, the fear that maybe this was a mistake, but then Tom was kissing him again and he was forgetting about the horrors that lay hidden in the corner of his mouth. 

~

“Do you want a drink?” said Tom from what Harry supposed must be the kitchen. Tom had turned the light on and left him alone for a minute. Looking around Harry was glad to note that he’d been correct, the apartment was small; small rooms, small windows, small everything, but it was also pleasant. Not a mess like Harry knew his own apartment currently was, but nor was it meticulously tidy. There was a large pile of books sitting at a desk, and another on the coffee table, there were strange books everywhere, and that was when it dawned on Harry, that he’d never asked Tom what he actually did for a living.  
“I’m currently in academia,” said Tom suddenly appearing behind him, a hand on the small of his back, “I brought you water, but I can change it if you like.”  
“Water’s fine,” said Harry, his throat felt weirdly dry, maybe it was the casualness about Tom, the nonchalance, as though he hadn’t just pressed him against the wall and done things Harry had always promised himself, he wouldn’t do with strangers anymore.  
There was silence and Harry awkwardly leafed through one of the books on the table, “what sort of things are you researching?” he said, his brain going back to those basic conversation starters old friends had forced him to learn after he’d been alone for too long. He didn’t know why he suddenly felt so awkward, he liked Tom and they had always gotten along in the coffee shop, so why was it any different here? Well, he knew why, because now Tom had probably got what he wanted, and Harry would be left alone again, like all the other times.  
“Alchemists of the Middle-Ages, in particular, their search for the elixir of life,” said Tom, interrupting his thoughts, before reaching over and closing the book Harry had been leafing through.  
“Will you let me show you something, Harry?” he said, all the intensity of the world in his eyes, burrowing right down into Harry’s own, deep into his brain, making him feel all light-headed again. He nodded, and Tom smiled. “It’s just a little hobby of mine, something I think you might like.”  
Harry nodded again, unsure what Tom wanted him to say, unsure of anything really, so much so that when Tom started walking away, he didn’t follow until Tom turned around and beckoned him like a dog.  
He followed Tom the short distance through the sitting room, down a small corridor and into, what he assumed was Tom’s bedroom. There was at least a bed in it, though the curtains were drawn despite them being on the seventh floor with no neighbours. Harry just stood by the door awkwardly watching as Tom fiddled with a bookcase, the only other major piece of furniture in the room, as though Tom had moved in quite recently and hadn’t finished moving his belongings.  
“Don’t look so worried,” said Tom, snapping him out of his thoughts and gesturing for him to come over. Harry definitely approached with more apprehension than he’d felt any other time with Tom, but what could possibly be that bad. Knowing Tom, it was probably books or weird objects that Harry didn’t really understand.  
“I’m not going to hurt you, Harry,” Tom said apparently sensing his uneasiness. He smiled and kissed the corner of his mouth before opening a door behind the bookcase and letting Harry walk in first.  
The room was dark, as all Tom’s room seemed to be, and even when the lights were turned on it was still dim. The room was small, about the size of a walk-in wardrobe, or at least what he guessed one would be like having never had the privilege of actually owning one. The floor was some sort of laminate, unlike the carpet that had covered the rest of the apartment, and as his eyes adjusted to the dullness, Harry made out a shelf at the other end of the room. On the shelf were jars, five jars filled with a clear liquid and something floating in them. Tom didn’t move but seemed to compel Harry forward, the gentleness of an unnaturally cold palm against his back.  
He stepped forward, the things floating were a little bigger than his fist and a red or a washed-out pink-grey, like they had been preserved for too long. They were just a mass of twists of tubes and curves, several shades of burgundy all mottled together, they were familiar, then he realised why. They were hearts. Human hearts, like the ones they saw projected on the wall in biology. Harry swallowed, a coldness settling in his stomach. Normal people did not have a hidden room filled with preserved hearts. He turned back towards the door, back to face Tom.  
“Do you like them?” Tom said, leaning against the door, that cruelness back at the corner of his mouth and his fingers tapping on the wood. Tapping and tapping and tapping, forcing Harry’s heart to beat to that same rhythm.  
“What are they?” Harry said, knowing his voice was too quiet, even though it felt loud shut in that small room. A little tiny part of him hoped he was wrong, that he was jumping to conclusions, that there were a hundred logical reasons why Tom had hearts lined up in jars. Or maybe they weren’t real, maybe this was his hobby, arts and craft.  
Tom straightened himself up, and stepped forward, Harry automatically took a step back, no longer wanting to be quite as close as before.  
Tom only smiled, “well, what do _you_ think they are, Harry?”  
Harry’s tongue felt limp and dry, and it took too long to get his words out, “they’re hearts. Human hearts.”  
“Well done, baby,” said Tom, taking another step forward. Harry wanted to step back again but doing that would put too close to things he didn’t want to think about, because unlike almost anything else in the world, humans couldn’t live without their hearts inside their bodies. He was stuck between something horrific and someone horrible who was calling him their baby.  
“Do you like them, Harry?” Tom asked again, not trying to come any closer, but not stepping back either.  
“Where did they come from?” Harry found himself saying, like he didn’t already know the answer. Tom smiled and closed the space between them, his fingers gentle against Harry’s cheek, just stroking down ever so slow. Harry tried not to flinch.  
“From inside people, Harry. To get them out, you have to crack their ribs,” he paused to press his knuckles against Harry’s sternum, dragging his fist down to the base of his ribs, “the sound is gorgeous, Harry, even better when they’re still alive. They hate watching you drag bits of them out.” Tom’s fingers pushed against Harry’s clothes, hooking under his ribs and making it hard to breathe and pulling him closer, “it’s just a shame they die so quickly after. That’s why I’m so good at foreplay.” Tom’s fingers unfurled from his ribs and instead slid against his waist. It was nothing compared to what he had been doing earlier and yet, Harry was squirming. He was feeling far too hot, the air in this small room being sucked out with every breath he took. He wondered if people had died here, if it was in here that Tom them apart, peeled their skin back and cut them open in his twisted version of foreplay. He had panicked thought then, that that was what Tom was about to do, about to make him the sixth heart on the shelf and yet he couldn’t find it in himself to push him away. All his limbs felt like lead and Tom’s hands were so stabilising and his voice so calming, leaning closer and murmuring so quietly, “don’t worry, baby, you’re safe with me.”

~

The last thing in the world that Harry felt at that point was safe. Not when Tom was quite so close, quite so gorgeous, quite so hot. Hands exuding a heat that flowed straight to his stomach.  
“Is this all of them?” he choked out, as if it being only five would somehow make the situation better.  
Tom hummed an approval. “That’s enough to be a serial killer, you know, but not enough to get a name.” He seemed disappointed with that last point. “It’s awfully nerve-wracking, waiting to see what the media’s going to call you. Are they going to understand, _really_ understand why I do it, or am I going to have to keep going until they do?” said Tom, his hand now scraping over Harry’s hip, subtly making sure he didn’t think of bolting out the door.  
“Who are they?” Harry asked quietly.  
“Oh, a mixture,” said Tom, mouth now lazy at his neck, “some I liked, some I didn’t, all of them I parted badly with.”  
“They’re your exes?”  
Tom actually detached himself from his neck, just so Harry could see the full extent of his eye roll, “honestly Harry, I thought you were more intelligent than that, please don’t prove me wrong.” Then he was dipping his tongue back into the crook of his collarbone. “Of course, they weren’t, in fact, I only ever dated one of these hearts.”  
Tom was turning him around then, and his fingers were ever so cold as they gripped Harry’s chin, and slowly turned his head. Forcing him to look carefully at the preserved hearts that decorated the shelf.  
“Care to read them.”  
Harry’s eyes scanned the jars and the labels, _Tom Sr., Thomas, Mary, Myrtle_ , and at the end of the shelf, the newest end, there was a jar with its heart that much more vivid than the others. The label said _Ginevra_ written in Tom’s fluid handwriting. Harry swallowed, feeling sicker than ever. Hearts outside of bodies just didn’t make sense to the human eye. But there was no denying they were pretty, just floating there, and he would have been tempting to think that Tom was lying, joking in order to scare him, but there was the smirk on his face and gleaming behind his eyes that very much suggested otherwise. That look he was giving him made Harry’s heart thud again, and that same snake, squeezing ever so slowly and ever so tightly in his stomach.  
“Ginevra,” he said aloud, the syllables sticking in his throat.  
“Ginevra,” Tom repeated, still smiling. It was unnerving, frightening even, knowing that Tom could kill him now if he wanted; knowing that Tom could do whatever he desired and that Harry wouldn’t be able to stop him, Harry wasn’t even sure if he would want to stop him tearing him apart. That made him feel sicker and fainter and more confused than ever. Not that Tom seemed to notice this personal crisis, he only kept his fingers firmly gripped on Harry’s chin, forcing him to keep looking at the label.  
“You see Harry,” he said, lips against his ear, “Ginevra was ever so fun, ever so easy to use for whatever I wanted, I was going to stay with her forever, but then I saw you watching, and you just looked so adorable. When our eyes met that time, I so badly wanted to add you to my collection,” Tom murmured quietly, the fingers of his other hand digging further into Harry’s shoulder, and his mouth so warm and wet. “But now, I’m not so sure, Harry, because you seem so full of potential.”  
“Why do you do it?” Harry said, chewing his lip and refusing to address the true weight of Tom’s statement.  
“Because love is simply sickening, Harry. All these people, they were so weighed down by love, they let it control them, consume them and people like that, just don’t deserve their hearts.”  
“But you love me?”  
Tom laughed, a cold empty thing that still managed to make Harry’s heart twist, “don’t try to be clever, Harry, it doesn’t suit you.” As if to emphasise it, Tom’s hands gripped his shoulder harder, nails digging through his shirt and into his skin. Harry was sure they were leaving marks he’d have to look at, remember, and enjoy that feeling again.  
“I’m different to other people, Harry, so are you. Their love is trivial, inconsequential, frivolous even; this is different, this is _special_ , can’t you feel it, Harry?”  
Harry wished he couldn’t. He _really_ wished that he couldn’t feel that intense squeezing slowly becoming a throb deep inside him. His body aching for something his brain didn’t want.  
“Why are you telling me this?” he said, though he could feel his voice cracking because Tom could only be sharing all the bad things he did for a limited number of reasons, killing him surely being the most obvious one.  
Tom only continued to smile. “Oh, baby, because I believe the best way to start a relationship is with honesty, don’t you?” said Tom, letting go of his face, and kissing his cheek. “So, do you want to play with me, Harry?”

 

“Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I came up with this idea it was meant to be cute and sweet, but I can't apparently write plain old sweet for this pairing, so it became dark and twisted, and I apologise for that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry, initially, has a lot of regrets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wasn't sure whether to write this, but eventually, I did (a reward for nearly finishing my exams). I hope it's not too bad, it's a little dark, but then again so was the first chapter, which I also thought was long, but wow, sorry about the length of this one, I hope it doesn't drag anywhere, (I think I probably got carried away).

Harry lay awake. The room was dark, but the glares of early morning sunlight were just starting to slide between the curtain and the wall. He could hear the clock, clicking back and forth and back and forth like a metronome. Though for all the noise, Harry didn’t look up and see the time, he didn’t know why, he just didn’t want to. Perhaps it would give too much gravity to the moment, a reality to what was happening, what had happened. So, he stayed still, just lying and listening to the sounds of Tom’s apartment, the sounds of Tom’s breathing, soft and out of sync with the clock. He wasn’t awake. Harry could tell by how still he was lying, how perfectly, perfectly still. Harry swallowed. A part of him wanted to move, to climb out of bed and leave this place and never come back, the rest of him wanted to stay here forever. To always feel the warmth of Tom’s body lying near him, to feel the weight of his hands on him and the wetness of his mouth. He turned over and looked at Tom, he was still perfect, in every way apart from one. When he was lying here now, no one would ever guess that he was something unspeakable. Even Harry, struggled a little, to match that Tom with the intelligent one who had kissed him across the table. But trust Harry to finally find someone he liked and then they turned out to be a serial killer, it was just his luck. His friends always said he attracted the wrong sort of people, simply by being alive he seemed to call the worst of humanity to him.  
He sighed. In the half-dark, he could make out the edges of the bare walls, no wallpaper, just a sort of cream coloured paint, currently cast with grey. If he squinted, he could see the texture of the paint, the cheapness of the walls, and where it was chipping at the base between the carpet and the skirting. It was not a comfortable bedroom, not a homely one. In fact, the only personal effects at all were the books and the ungodly things that Tom hid behind them.  
Harry could almost, almost feel them calling from behind the door. An ache that penetrated through the room. It brought about a fear that dug deep into his lungs and made breathing feel hard, but at the same time, there was an anticipation. Light, and hovering above him, settling momentarily on his skin, making the hairs rise and a coldness to blossom in his stomach like those magnolia trees he saw outside the church he passed every day.  
He knew it was wrong by every definition that he should find someone like Tom quite so electric. He was terrible, the sort of creature that everyone could condemn with equal disgust, and yet, at the same time, he was brilliant. A shining, burning wonder that made Harry’s pulse race, and the air to stick in his lungs for other reasons. Tom was the epitome of controlled chaos, the innocent flowers and the serpent beneath it. He made him feel special, feel different and much less alone.  
Harry shifted, the duvet crinkling as he did so, protesting so loudly at his movements. Tom was still asleep. He swallowed and slid out from the bed. Tom turned over but stayed dead to the world. Why did his mind supply the word dead? In fact, why did it do anything at all? All its decisions seemed to be bad ones. He shook his head and grabbed his clothes from the unruly pile that had been formed last night.  
He regretted it all. Regretted being foolish enough to give his heart without truly checking whom it was that he was giving it to. He was stupid, and he should have known better than to just trust people. Not to mention that Tom was just the worst, the worst of the worst. The exact sort of person that he should never give his heart to. Harry almost groaned. Why did he think of things like that? Because now that was all he could think about: giving Tom his heart, in all its bloody glory.  
He got dressed, keeping his eyes fixed on the dim door, as though the things that were in there could come out at their own will. He didn’t look at Tom again, not even as he was shutting the door of the bedroom and finding his way out of the apartment. Harry did think about him though, as he walked down the stairs, and as he checked the map on his phone trying to work out where he was, and as he sat on the bus going back home. Even as he entered his own small apartment he still thought about Tom.

~

The next week was probably one of the most painful of Harry’s life. He didn’t really leave the house, he didn’t really do anything, which just made it worse. To feel the pain in his chest, that slow sharp stab, to feel that nervousness dragged up from the darkness inside him, to feel what had to be love, curl its way around every part of his life until it was just unbearable.  
More than once Harry found himself in his tiny kitchen, staring at the jars in the cupboard. They just contained flour and lentils and other ingredients he would probably never use. But there was one, right at the back, a gift from someone at some point. Pickled cherry peppers. Small and red, and shaped like people’s hearts. Harry would stand in his cold little kitchen and stare at that jar, and almost feel Tom’s fingers on his chin, and his mouth at his neck, just telling him to look, to see what humans could do if they forgot their inhibitions, if they just let go.  
It would leave his teeth chattering and his heart beating and his nerves on edge. Most importantly though, it would leave him with regrets. Hopeless regrets. Loving and loathing Tom in equal measure. Though, whatever he thought of him, he had to grateful that Tom had deigned to tell him at all, giving him a chance to get out before he was even in.  
To be honest though, it was not Tom as such that was on his mind. Rather, it was his own confession that was most pressing in his head. Did he really want those things? Was that the sort of person he was? He knew from years of hearing himself talk, and years of seeing other people’s reactions, that he did not see things in the black and white that seemed to be appropriate, or even the only acceptable way to think. His world was made more of shades of grey, and Tom was definitely on the darker end of the spectrum. Harry supposed, that if he’d never met Tom, he would never have had to think about these things, he’d never again have had to evaluate his position on murder and trophy keeping. But he had met Tom, and now he had to work out once again where he stood on all those things.  
Sitting in front of a computer, with a lukewarm cup of everyday tea, because it was the only one had at home, it did not take Harry long to find words that described the things he felt. _Autassassinophilia_. He couldn’t even say it, but it was exactly what he had been thinking about when he standing in the dark, alone with Tom. That throbbing awareness that at any second Tom probably knew ten different ways to dispense with his life. Apparently, that wasn’t a normal thing to find arousing. Nor was knowing for a fact that Tom _had_ killed people. That was the second word, which he could say, _hybristophilia_. Harry wondered whether that was what Tom meant when he said he had potential. Had he seen things in him, that even Harry himself could not see? Was it that _obvious_ to those inclined? He didn’t know, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to. If that was the real reason, he attracted all the nastiest people to him, because he was like a lighthouse in a storm, just calling them closer. 

~

Harry spent more time than he should have, watching the street outside the sitting room window, watching the rain as it dripped from the trees and hit the cars and made everything dangerous. Even with the double glazing, the noises of the city never went away, particularly not when he sat in such complete silence, no music to warm the air, not even the TV casting nothing but static, just perfect silence infected by the world.  
Tom would appreciate such silence. Harry could picture him sitting with his books and his papers, reading and writing with that lovely fluid handwriting, the pleasant quiet enveloping him in its gentle arms; helping him with his thoughts. In comparison, this silence seemed sickly, too quiet, too empty. When it touched him, Harry felt too alone again, and it didn’t matter what he tried to do, the feeling just wouldn’t leave. It was a permanent grating on his nerves. The agony of waiting for something he didn’t quite understand, but knew nonetheless, was never going to happen.  
He knew that Tom didn’t have his number but didn’t stop Harry jumping every single time his mobile rang. The sound, though familiar, shocking in the silence, and painful because he both wanted to hear Tom’s voice, to listen, and hear Tom’s intelligent words. Harry just craved, if you could crave such intangible things, Tom’s diction and his enunciation and his vocabulary. Everything that Tom had suggested, he wanted, and his own voice did not seem to sate him, however much he wished it would. He knew that he didn’t sound as intelligent, as put-together, which was strange because Tom’s mind was probably closer to coming apart than staying together, and yet he managed to act so much like he was in control. Harry knew that if they were compared, made to stand together in a police line-up, that most people would probably choose him as the murderer, rather than Tom; he just had that falling apart sort of aura about him.  
So he just sat in the silence, listening to the rain and the cars and static, dreaming of the places that he would have liked to go with Tom, if somehow, he could reconcile the love that he knew he was feeling, with the horror that lived inside Tom.  
The worst time was on the edge of sleep, when the world was hazing and calm, and for the briefest seconds he thought he could feel Tom’s fingers on his thigh, and when he fell asleep, he dreamt dark shadowy dreams that made his stomach turn and him wake up in the early hours panting for no reason at all. Though he never saw Tom’s face in those dreams, he did see pressed shirts and books, heard languages he didn’t understand spoken in Tom’s voice as he pushed him a wall in a small dark room. He dreamt of falling straight through cream paint and onto cream sheets, feeling bloody hands on him, leaving streaks of red that glittering with strange colours that he had never seen in nature before; so made shades of red uncapturable by the human eye. In those perfectly curated dreams, Tom always kissed him slowly and pressed a palm to his neck, and they could both feel his pulse pounding heavier and heavier and heavier until he was waking up and reaching to his side, wanting someone to be there, and wanting for it to be Tom. 

~

Harry gave in too soon. He found himself walking along the street to the café. It wasn’t to see Tom because how would he even know if Tom was there. Just because Tom frequented that café, it didn’t mean that he couldn’t as well. He was an adult and he was entitled to make his own bad decisions for himself.  
The roads were quite quiet, and there was that feeling in the air before rain. Everyone he passed glanced up to the sky every few seconds, waiting and wondering when the inevitable was going to happen. People were so mechanical like that, and Harry wondered how he had never appreciated it before. People were just machines steering their way through life, whilst never truly leaving their tracks, they were robotic, too automated for comfort, but they had no idea. They lived their simple lives thinking that they were individuals when really, they were nothing of the sort. Tom wasn’t mechanical, he had cut himself out of that mould, however painfully, and now he was free. Harry wished had that confidence, that drive, to do something as bold as that, but he didn’t, did he?  
He almost missed the entrance thanks to thinking so much. But as soon as he stepped inside, he was swathed in the same quiet sanctitude that it had always been, simplicity punctuated with mumbled conversations under the glow of gentle lights. It was even the same older barista as had been when he was last in. She smiled kindly and spoke calmly about nothing in particular. But it was reassuring to hear, soothing his jittery nerves, that existed for no reason, other than he had seen dark hair already occupying the place that he usually sat.  
He went to the same seat anyway. He told himself that it was because there was nowhere else to sit, despite passing the still vacant table in the corner. As he walked, Harry could feel the faint weight of people’s eyes on him. Probably, judging him, they’d almost certainly seen him leave with Tom last time, and now turn up on his own. Was this the highlight of their week?  
“You’ve been avoiding me, Harry,” said Tom, even before Harry had fully sat down.  
“I haven’t,” he said putting his mug on the table before him and shuffling his bag closer, a small barrier between him and the rest of the world.  
Tom raised an eyebrow. He was sitting there with a book and mug and had clearly seen him approach through the big window. How had Harry forgotten the window?  
“If it is not avoiding then, what would you call it?”  
Harry couldn’t help but notice, as he sat there considering his answer, that Tom was like a switch, a binary relation, either on or off. Right now, he was calm and quiet, the epitome of good-natured, and no one would ever guess that there was something cruel lurking under his skin. But he wondered, how little it would take to flick Tom’s whole personality back the other way, and which one was the real him; the cold-hearted one with the cruel smile, or the one that sat before him, calm and quiet. Even without looking up, Harry knew Tom was still watching him, he could feel his eyes bearing down, so heavy on his head.  
“Distance,” Harry said quietly, taking a sudden and immense interest in the contents of his mug. Unwilling to look up and see Tom’s eyes stained by the grey streams of dampened light that came through the window.  
“Why do you need distance?” Tom said, his tone had softened until the sharp edge that it had held before was no more than a rounded stone’s curve.  
Harry’s could feel his lips moving, but the words stayed stuck to the roof of his mouth, never to see the light of day.  
“Um – because – um – are you drinking tea?” he said suddenly trying to change the subject and hoping that Tom wouldn’t care enough to call him out.  
“Well, I thought I would give it a try,” Tom said, looking down at the cup, “given that you always seemed to enjoy yours.”  
Harry tried to ignore the statement and the implications that lay within it. “What type is it?”  
Tom had to check the receipt in his pocket. “Ginger Green,” he said eventually, clasping it tightly and putting it his lips, probably trying to warm his cold soul. It was pretty tea, and Harry was quite sure that he’d never had it before, he would have recognised that butter-gold glow and sweet aroma.  
Harry swallowed, trying desperately to both not be mesmerised by the tea, and to think of something to keep the dwindling conversation going, because as much as he didn’t want to talk about what had happened, he still wanted to talk to Tom. “Do you like it?” was all he could come up with.  
Tom smiled, “no, it’s absolutely disgusting,” he said, putting it back down on to the table. “What about you? That’s not tea, is it?”  
Harry smiled sheepishly, knowing that once again he was blushing, “it’s black coffee.”  
He hadn’t known why he ordered it, and he knew he wasn’t going to drink it. He had just wanted to be reminded of Tom, to do his best to simulate him in some wholly unrealistic way.  
“Do you want to swap?” said Tom, holding out his own cup.  
Harry found himself smiling for really no reason at all, and handing over his scalding cup of coffee, in exchange of a lukewarm cup of tea. It should have been an embarrassing situation all around, but instead, it almost felt endearing.

~

“You left,” said Tom after a while more of silence. That same tone back in his voice that made it utterly impossible to guess how he felt about the situation. “Why?”  
Harry shrugged, which was the coward’s way of doing it, instead of just admitting that he’d freaked out a little. That he had a sudden epiphany of morality, which now had apparently disappeared with just as much vigour as it had arisen with.  
“Do you want to talk about it?”  
“About what?” Harry said, somehow believing that if he stared long enough at the wooden grooves in the table, and feigned stupidity, that maybe Tom would let it drop. That, if he pretended that nothing had happened, they could go back to that time before, and he could use the lovely excuse of ignorance to justify why he still liked Tom.  
Tom didn’t reply, and the silence between them was poignant, bordering on tense. Harry looked up, Tom was studying him, head to the side. “About the other day,” he said slowly.  
Harry did not want to talk about it, that was probably obvious. It was just that, if they talked about it, then he’d have to really admit it, and where was the justification for finding out a man was a murderer and _then_ staying the night regardless, not to mention that it was probably classed as much more than just ‘staying the night’.  
So, the silence persisted.  
“You know, I meant what I said,” said Tom, leaning close enough that the tips of his fingers touched Harry’s. They were hot enough to feel like they were burning holes straight through the flesh, but Harry didn’t move away.  
“Hmm?”  
“Harry, I want this to be something.” Tom swallowed and didn’t move his fingers. “I like you; you like me; so, what is the problem?”  
Harry leaned forward, in a way that to others might have looked like beautiful intimacy, to lovers leaning close to share the very air that they breathed. “The problem, Tom, is that you have five,” he lowered his voice, “human hearts sitting in your apartment.”  
“Why is that a problem?” he said, all big eyes and innocent tone, that was so different to how he had been before.  
“Because – because…” Harry stopped. Why was it a problem? The way Tom said it, made it seem like they were decorative plates, and not a problem at all, but they were a problem. “Because of what they mean.”  
“And what is that?” said Tom leaning back against the chair, still studying him, still giving away nothing about his current emotional state.  
If it was anyone else, Harry might have glared at them, but with Tom, he couldn’t quite bring himself to. “It means that people have died – ”  
“People do that every day.”  
“Yeah but not like that,” Harry said, swinging his hand a little too wildly and catching it on the edge of the mug. It wobbled, tilting at a dangerous angle before righting itself, only a little splashed on the table. They looked back at each other.  
“Harry, there are seven point five billion people on this planet, and you’re worried about five of them, that you didn’t even know. Would it help if I said they were awful people?”  
“Just why, do you do it?”  
“I told you.”  
Harry bit his tongue because Tom was being unhelpful, and this felt like the beginning of an argument he didn’t want to have. “You said it was about love”  
“In this world everything is,” said Tom sharply enough that it sounded critical as opposed to apathetic. There sounded like there was a story behind those words, a whole tale as to why Tom saw only bad things in other people’s love. But at that moment, Harry didn’t ask because there were far more pressing issues on the edge of his tongue.  
“Would you stop?” he said quietly, his finger drawing right around the rim of the mug, slow soothing circles, that managed to calm his nerves, and set off the mild irritation at Tom’s lack of cooperation.  
“No.”  
The answer was definite, Tom not even taking a moment to consider it.  
“Not even if I asked you to?”  
“Not even if you asked me to,” Tom repeated back to him. Harry watched him for a moment, trying to see all the emotions that had to have been swimming in the depths of Tom’s face, but he saw none. He wondered if Tom could see his; if he could understand the distraction he was causing, the problematic position that his lifestyle choices put Harry’s morality in. If he saw, he did not comment.  
So, they sat in silence, until eventually, they both turned to look out the window, where a gentle smattering of rain had begun to coat the glass. With it, the clouds were rolling heavier in, and the natural light was starting to fade, casting those gorgeous shadows across Tom’s face, the ones that made him look like a renaissance painting worth millions.  
“How about we get dinner? Talk about things?” Tom said, breaking the silence and leaning forward again, not touching Harry’s hands, but close enough that Harry could, if he wanted to, reach out and touch them himself.  
Harry sat there for a minute, pretending to consider, even though he already knew he wasn’t going to turn Tom down, not when talking to him had been all that he could think about for ages now. “Fine,” he said, “but only if you’ll pay.”  
Although Harry looked down at the tea, he caught Tom’s smile, and it made a warmth, a fuzziness spread through him that wasn’t really fair, given that Tom was supposed to be the unlikeable one. 

~

They sat together on a damp bench by the river, watching the grey water slide under grey bridges, and the occasional cry of a gull or maybe it was just a pigeon, Harry couldn’t really tell, but nor did he really care. It was cold sitting there, and though the rain had stopped, the evening rolling in, and wind sweeping off the river and chilling his hand, attaching itself to his fingers with surprising dexterity.  
They were sitting in silence, eating chips with their fingers, just about comfortable with nothing but the sounds of the world; the lapping of the river on the concrete walls and the screeching of birds above and the chatter of happy people as they walked by. Tom broke that peaceful silence though. He’d been thinking about it for a while, in his periphery Harry had seen his lips move, trying to find the right words.  
“Would you come back with me tonight? I could try and explain,” Tom asked. From the corner of his eye, Harry could see Tom had turned to face him, he didn’t turn, just kept his eyes on a boat as it drifted slowly between the arches of a bridge.  
“Harry?”  
He still didn’t reply. What was there to say? Or rather, how could he simply explain that he really, really liked Tom, but he was a monster, and it was wrong to love a monster?  
“Or I could come to yours?” said Tom voice quietly, and caught on the wind, “I’d like to; if you’re happy with that?”  
“I’d rather you didn’t know where I lived,” Harry found himself saying, knowing the second it left his mouth that it was far too cold, far too unfeeling compared to how he really felt. If he didn’t know any better, Harry would think that Tom recoiled just slightly then, retracted himself back against the bench’s wood.  
Tom’s next words were colder, not quite threatening, but they had the same timbre, the same deep penetrating resonance as they had when Tom had held his jaw and made him look.  
“I do have access to the internet, you know, Harry. I could find out where you lived right now if I wanted to.”  
“You don’t know enough about me,” he said, still not facing Tom because he was coward and couldn’t bring himself to do things like that.  
“Well actually Harry,” Tom continued, apparently not caring if Harry was pretending not to care himself, “it turns out I don’t need to, _everyone_ seems to know who _you_ are, and there’s rather a lot of information, if you know where to look.”  
A shrill cold started to trickle out of Harry’s bones and down the back of his spine, sliding through every crack of his body, around him the air became stale and much too close. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, getting up and throwing the greasy paper into the bin. He did know though; he knew exactly what Tom was talking about. It was just one of those things that he didn’t share, not with Tom, not with his friends, not even with that therapist everyone wanted him to see. Not anyone. 

~

Harry started to walk away then, he wasn’t sure where he was planning on going as it was starting to get dark, just anywhere, anywhere at all that would avoid having this conversation. Tom followed him. Walked alongside, and Harry didn’t stop him, but nor did he acknowledge him. As they started to leave the tourist hubs, the cafés and the restaurants, and walk towards the museums that were closed and quiet, Harry could hear Tom just clicking his tongue. It made him nervous. Scared in a way he could quite explain, other than he was suddenly quite aware that his natural position was much lower down in the food chain than Tom’s.  
They stopped at the side of the river just before a footbridge, it was almost deserted, and Harry couldn’t help but think that if Tom were to push him over the edge and leave him to drown in the murky water, then no one would even notice.  
“You do know what I’m talking about,” Tom murmured, not watching his face for a reaction, just staring out across the river, watching the people as they walked along the path on the other side.  
“I don’t,” Harry repeated, and he wasn’t sure why he was denying it, why he didn’t just say that he didn’t want to talk about it, why he baited Tom into sharing, instead of shutting it all down like a normal person when they’re confronted with unsavoury facts about themselves.  
“You don’t know about a little baby then,” said Tom, his fingers shifting on the metal handrail, “one who was the sole survivor of a very nasty human being? Found crying all alone. Did anyone ever tell you what happened to your parents, Harry? Or have they kept it so much of a secret that you are the only person in the entire world, who doesn’t know?”  
Harry swallowed, trying to keep his face steady like Tom did so well, but knowing that the whole jumble of emotions, tangled up like sewing threads, were probably displayed for whoever cared to look. “I know what happened to them,” he said quietly though he could hear his voice shaking, turning to face Tom.  
“You had to find out, all by yourself, didn’t you? That must have hurt,” said Tom, without the malice that Harry had expected. Rather, it sounded sympathetic, sorry almost, like he understood.  
They were just watching each other now, not caring that the wind was cold in their hair, or that the waves of the river were lapping closer to the edge.  
“It was a long time ago,” said Harry, wanting to look away, to stare at the water, but Tom’s eyes holding him there.  
“I bet it doesn’t feel it, does it?” said Tom, leaning just a little closer so that their hands touched, Harry didn’t pull away.  
“Do you still remember reading the reports, the beating of your heart as you realised what he did?”  
Harry found himself nodding, found himself not caring that Tom’s hands were now fully covering his, or that they were quite so close. Not even caring that Tom was just so carefully stripping him back, like a gardener removing a rose’s rotten petals, searching for the centre, still fresh and beautiful.  
“Can you answer me one thing, Harry?” Tom said, his lips so close to Harry’s ear that he could feel the words on his skin. “As you watched him die, did it make you feel better?”  
“It wasn’t murder,” Harry said quickly, suddenly diverting his eyes back to the water. He always had to say it, had to convince himself somehow that it wasn’t, that he hadn’t done something like that, that he was, in some way, better than Tom.  
“I know,” said Tom, not moving away, and still speaking softly, “acquitted on grounds of self-defence, weren’t you? I read the papers; it was all very interesting, but it doesn’t answer my question. Did it feel good to kill the man who killed your parents?”  
Harry stayed silent. All of nature seemed louder, the distant cars on the roads, and boats in the water, and gulls in the sky, even the lights seemed to scream out in the grey.  
“Did it?” said Tom, the single quiet voice in all this noise.  
“Yes.”  
Tom kissed him, cold fingers on colder cheeks. Just two shadows of people standing on the river bank, kissing like they were in love.

~

Harry lay on his bed, still clothed and very much alone. Outside the lights of the street shone steadily. He hadn’t gone home with Tom, and Tom had not come home with him. Instead, they had just parted ways, Harry walking back the way they had come, and Tom over and across the footbridge. They had said they would meet again sometime, and they would because Harry had given up pretending with himself that he wasn’t interested in Tom, when he so obviously was.  
Harry got up. He needed to sleep, and he couldn’t do that in his clothes, or when his heart was still thumping quite so heavily. He stood in the bathroom touching his lip, trying to feel the kisses that Tom had placed on them as though they were tangible objects of his affection. He wished he could scrape them off, put them in a jar and keep them as happy memories of another time. He wondered whether that was what Tom did, in a backward sort of way, taking little trophies from moments of happiness that were fewer and farther between than he would be inclined to admit. Were they really rather more similar than he would like to admit? That somehow, they had found each other, just when both of them were wondering so lost in the world.  
Under that yellowing light that reflected all over the room, bathing it all in a sickly glow, Harry tried not think about what Tom had said, tried not to remember sitting there in the bathroom when he was eleven years old, and searching through the newspaper clippings he wasn’t supposed to have, and finding out what had happened to the people he was meant to love the most in the world.  
Somehow, whether by accident, mere memory, or design, Tom had known that Harry had done something a long time ago, well, not as long ago as he would like to think. It was the sort of action that people read about in books, and watched in television drama, scoffing at how convoluted and unrealistic the plot was. How someone could care that much about people they didn’t know.  
Harry held the sink, breathing slowly, those paced breaths. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four. Hold for fours. Repeat and repeat and repeat. It didn’t make it better and if he closed his eyes, he could still see the blood that had been in the sink when he washed his hands, and how they’d shaken and stained everything with red when the soap foamed, and then again when he called the police.  
Strongest of all, he remembered standing there in front of everyone and lying. Standing there and saying that he feared for his life, making them all believe that he was nothing more than a child that had always been caught up in something bigger than himself. They believed him. Now though, he was here, in a new life, holding the cold sink late at night, and remembering what it felt like to slide a knife so deliberately into someone else’s heart. 

~

Tom had suggested they meet up somewhere other than the café. Just meet up and talk and see how it all went. At the time, Harry had agreed, but he regretted it now, or, at least, regretted letting Tom choose the venue.  
He wasn’t sure was sort of event this classified as, but it felt too prestigious. Harry felt like he was standing out just by being there. He didn’t fit in with the clink of fine china teacups on equally fine saucers, nor was he comfortable with the elegance of the glassware. All a little too good for him, a little too fancy, reminding him too much of the things that he wasn’t, and that Tom was. He sighed, trying to remember what it was that his old friends had said about his inadequacy, how he needed to stop comparing himself to things. He sighed again, moving through the well-dressed swathes of people who found whatever this was enjoyable, to the edge of the room. Surveying it, but nor participating in anything that it contained.  
The event itself was held in some old chapel-cum-museum, obvious when Harry looked up at the undisguisable ceiling of an old Anglican church, and it was something to do with Mysticism and the Occult. He should have guessed knowing Tom.  
As Harry let his eyes roam the attendants, all of whom looked like they were from academia, he caught sight of dark hair and a voice that was far too calm and intelligent. Tom. He was standing in the centre of the room, looking flawless as he spoke to people who seemed to be interested. But there was someone else too. Abraxas was standing at Tom’s side, a respectable distance whilst they were talking, but as the conversation came to close, and the other participants moved away, Abraxas slid himself that little bit closer.  
It wasn’t inappropriate, far from it, but somehow it still made something twinge in Harry's stomach. He wasn’t jealous, he had decided that the first time he saw Abraxas, there was no point being jealous of someone who was clearly so much better in every single respect. But that didn’t stop him being envious. Resentful of the casualness with which Abraxas touched Tom, the ease he was at, the effortlessness of their relationship. It did not contain pained silences filled with empty questions that neither of them felt at liberty to ask. Abraxas and Tom didn’t even seem to need words at all, just little glances at each other, and they seemed to understand, seemed to get each other in a way that even the closest couple would no doubt envy.  
It was also obvious, at least to Harry standing across in the shadows where they probably couldn’t see him, that Abraxas must know Tom’s little secret. There was no way two people who were apparently so close, could not know those sorts of facts about each other. Harry had to wonder why Abraxas kept quiet about it all, why he did not just shout it to the world? He had to a stake of sorts in the outcome, an understanding that would benefit him because even from just the casual meeting they had had, it was obvious that was the sort of person that Abraxas was. But for now, Harry just watched, trying to remember the last time he had seen two people who looked so at ease together. Maybe, that was what came of sharing the darkest deepest secrets with one another, a completeness, a harmony that would last until the end of time, or at least until Tom got too irritated, which appeared to be happening quite soon, if his apathetic reactions were anything to go by.  
When Tom saw him, he smiled, Abraxas rolled his eyes and did not follow Tom over, although Harry caught how his fingers rested on Tom’s arm for just a second too long, and how he murmured something that not even those close would have been able to hear. 

~

As they wandered around together that evening, it felt as though everything had reset itself back to how it had all been before they had found out the truth about each other. Back to the time when Harry would just sit and listen to Tom’s way of talking wash over him. Nodding and understanding on a superficial level, but knowing that he was taking none of the information in. That it merely floated upon the surface of his brain, ready to be pushed away with the breeze of a new fact, or image that Tom desired to show him.  
Occasionally Abraxas deigned to join them, or rather join Tom, as he did not even make an attempt to converse with Harry, which he was quite grateful for if he was honest. There would have been nothing worse than showing Abraxas, he was as stupid as he, no doubt, already thought he was. On the rare occasions that Tom allowed himself to be pushed in front, and Harry behind, Harry couldn’t help but see how much Abraxas really touched, and it wasn’t because he liked touching people generally. Tom’s wrist was the only one his fingers brushed, as was his back, and Tom’s face was the only one Abraxas paid any special attention to. Though perhaps it wasn’t all that surprising, everyone paid special attention to Tom, he demanded that they did, in his silent charismatic way. But Harry was the only one to who Tom paid attention, and that made him feel better than he could ever put into words.  
For all his absent stares, Tom never told Abraxas to stop, but nor did he give any encouragement, and Harry just watched, knowing though he’d never admit it, that he did feel a little jealous, and that was probably the whole point of Abraxas making it so obvious, that he and Tom had probably been more than friends once. But whatever they had been, they weren’t now. Anyone could guess that from Tom’s apathy and even refusals. Harry had been coming back from the bathroom when he heard the end of their conversation  
“…I’m not meeting them today, Abraxas, I told you that,” said Tom, just walking away, and encouraging Harry to walk with him. Abraxas had not come back after that, and Harry briefly wondered whether he had missed a more dramatic argument, but he dared not ask. Instead, he just appreciated having Tom to himself. To have just the two of them wander around the silent parts of the museum that other people did not care for or had already visited. It was nice to wander in the silence. To just stand and listen to whatever Tom had to say, and to have Tom appreciate his own small and infrequent observations.  
Most of the things they saw Harry would have perhaps called junk, but because Tom seemed to like it, he refrained. There was one artefact though that caught both their eyes was one displayed in the vaults that had been converted, though not redecorated for the sake of authenticity. In the centre of the small room stood a case, and inside it was an anatomical heart made of gold.  
A simple, apparently, relic of some ancient name that hooked Tom’s interest like fishing bait catches a fish. He talked to its keeper, and older jovial man, the only words that Harry caught from their conversation was something about a vessel for the elixir of life. He only really paid any attention to them, when Tom was murmuring that he would be back in a minute, as he followed the man out and up the stairs, probably to be shown more information.  
Harry stayed behind, alone in the room under the artificial lights, and in the striking coolness of the underground. It was quiet beneath the floor, quiet to an almost eerie degree. For though he knew for certain that there were many people above him, talking and laughing between elegant drinks and sophisticated conversation, he could hear none of them now. It was just him and the heart.  
The heart itself was beautiful, glimmering even in the poor light, though it looked slightly off, incorrect even to his medically untrained eye. It was probably owing to it being several hundred years old, first made back when people were hiding out in vaults like this, cutting other’s open against all laws, and learning what was inside. Harry swallowed. He wondered whether Tom took such delight when he opened people up and took this centrepiece from their bodies. Whether for him it was a victory. Harry knew that for himself, hearts were somehow tragedies, so simple, and yet so easily broken. One wrong word, or one perfectly placed jab of a knife, and suddenly hearts were broken, and someone had to stay behind to pick up all the pieces. 

~

They got back late, or at least, later than intended but there hadn’t been any convenient taxis, and they’d had to walk several streets with nothing but the dark and the blinking of too many lights, just to find one.  
Though they’d left together, and walked home together, and now went into the same apartment, they hadn’t touched. Harry supposed it was because it was late and dark and Tom didn’t want to invite trouble to them, but then again, he would have been quite intrigued to see what Tom would do. For there was always something sinister just below Tom’s skin, just the suggestions of the things that he could do. A small part of Harry really wanted to see, but he thought that might just be the messed-up part of his brain, the part that was attracted to that sort of thing. The rest of him, he reasoned, probably wouldn’t want to see a dead body again, or even another dying one. None of that stopped the thoughts though. His imagination running away at what it would be like to see Tom snap someone’s neck, or the feeling of his fingers when they were stained with someone else’s blood. But before he could elaborate any more on that particular fantasy, they were at Tom’s building, and he was politely paying the driver, probably with Abraxas’ money.  
Tom’s apartment was just the same as it always had been, though perhaps a little messier, opened book and pages spread out on the floor like Tom was trying to work out a great conspiracy, perhaps he was, perhaps Harry should have been paying more attention to what he said about his work. The hundreds of names and the dates and the many, many discoveries that Tom always talked uninhibited about.  
Tom led him out of the sitting room, murmuring something about not moving the carefully positioned papers that were taking up the entire sofa. Instead, they were going to the bedroom, and Harry could feel his heart beat rising, though why he couldn’t quite work out. He wasn’t scared. He had no reason to be this time, he already knew of all Tom’s secrets. 

~

The bedroom was the same as it had been. The same cream walls, same empty spaces, same curtains, drawn, and same bookcase. Nothing had changed in his absence, and there was absolutely nothing to be nervous about. And there continued to be nothing, even as Tom was sitting down on the bed and inviting him to sit down as well. With Tom leaning back and Harry sitting awkwardly, legs hanging over the edge, they weren’t quite in bed together, but they were on it. Not that he knew why it really mattered, they had already done a lot more on the bed than merely sitting. But somehow this felt different, far more intimate than sex. That was just bodies, doing with bodies did, this was far more special, far more definite, and more intimate than he was truly willing to acknowledge, because what if Tom didn’t feel the same?  
So, they sat in a brief and compatible silence. Their faces sheened with the dull orange light that glowed above them, Tom looking too perfect and Harry being vaguely aware that he was looking slightly less so.  
“Were you jealous?” said Tom suddenly, shifting so that the duvet crinkled, and Harry was reminded of the last time he was lying here, regretting everything that had happened. He didn’t regret it now.  
“No.”  
“Good,” said Tom, moving to make himself more comfortable, and leaving one of his hands lying close enough that Harry could just reach out and touch it if he wanted. “I thought that you might have been, and you shouldn’t. I told you before, Abraxas is nothing but a brat.”  
“You seemed to get along tonight,” said Harry quietly, not confirming Tom’s apparent thoughts, but, he thought, maybe making it obvious that he had been watching them, perhaps too much.  
“That’s because we were in public, and Abraxas is very particular about his image. I think he’d kill me if I ruined it,” Tom said with such a smile that suggested he had thought about ruining it several times before. It was a nice smile. The one Tom shared when he thought of something that no one else had. It warmed Harry’s heart and made his thoughts all tangled together in one great mess that he could never properly decipher.  
Tom continued, “I make him look good, like glass that only reflects out the nice parts.” Tom continued to smile, even as he rested his head against the pillow.  
“Is Abraxas not nice then?” said Harry, not lying down, instead, sitting back, his legs crossed and his head resting against the headboard, and his eyes on Tom’s outstretched hand.  
“Of course he isn’t, but I don’t want to talk about Abraxas, Harry. I want to talk about you and me, and what this is supposed to be.” He lifted his hand and stretched it out to him, Harry took it instinctively.  
“What do you think this is?” said Tom as he clasped their fingers together, finger pads resting on his knuckles, holding his hand just tight enough.  
“I – I.” Under Tom’s eyes, Harry suddenly felt like it was the first time that he was speaking to Tom, and the words were sticking in his throat again. “I think it’s love.”  
“I do too, but you already knew that, baby,” said Tom idly, closing his eyes for a second, but not removing his hand, if anything squeezing it, just that little more. It was reassuring, intimate in such a sweet way.  
Tom leaned up then, three-quarters of the way, enough to give Harry a clue at what he wanted. Harry leant forwards just that little way, and they kissed like they did in all Harry’s dreams. Just lazy mouths finding each other in the dim, indulging themselves in simple pleasures that had never felt quite so good.  
The tips of Tom’s cool fingers on his spare hand, rubbed against the back scalp, before running over his ear and up to the front, making Harry’s hair messier than it already was. But for once in his life, Harry didn’t really mind. Didn’t mind at all, because Tom would keep kissing him regardless. He could look terrible and he suspected that Tom would still hold his face between his palms and smile at him like it was their last moment on earth, and that was such a nice feeling, a security and a self-confidence he’s never really had before.  
Love had always been such an easy trap to fall into, and one that was so difficult to escape from. But for a change, Harry didn’t want to escape, he didn’t find himself lying there kissing someone’s lips and regretting it deep inside. No, this was different to all those other times, all those other times that he thought meant something when they really didn’t. Those meetings were short and sharp; passionate and fleeting, and they certainly didn’t just lie there tasting each other’s mouths until they couldn’t keep their eyes open any longer. 

~

The veil of normalcy that Harry tried to pretend they had, was burnt up only a while later. He’d come over to Tom’s, they agreed he could whenever he wanted. It had been quiet in the hall, and quieter still in the sitting room, all the books and papers undisturbed. All about was the sort of stillness that became eerie when it went on for too long, even though he knew Tom was supposed to be home. There was a singular noise. Harry could hear it as he hung his coat up in the hall. A sort of whining, cutting through the air, perhaps the low hum of a pipe, at least, that was one of the nicer thoughts that came to Harry’s mind. The nastier ones contained wounded animals lying there helpless as something ate at their insides, or perhaps the more tragic suggestion of someone lying on their back whilst Tom used his tongue for less than innocent past times.  
Regardless, Harry followed it, that muffled calling. It was coming from the bedroom, and briefly, Harry stood with his hand on the handle, wondering whether he should go in at all, or whether he should start another fuss, whether he should leave, and pretend it never happened, or leave and never come back, disappear forever this time. He didn’t though because he was curious, scared and anxious and strangely excited. He opened the door.  
It was dim in the room, the lights all turned off, and the only brightness at all coming from the daylight that curled itself between the curtains and the cream walls. But despite the gloom, Harry could see where the noise was coming from. The door to Tom’s special room, which really needed a better name than that, was open, and with a slight step forward Harry could see him, and he wasn’t alone.  
Tom was standing with his hand over some boy’s mouth, that was the whining, the begging sound, a person wishing to be freed, and promising anything in return. Not that Tom seemed to care. He didn’t care for anything, not for the boy’s struggling or whining or begging. Tom was calm, calculated, exactly as he had been when they were alone in that room together. As Harry stood there, watching unobserved, time seemed to slow. Everything existed in that moment with so much more clarity than before. He saw the mustard yellow of the boy’s jumper, it had old snag at the elbow that faced towards him. The boy was moving uncomfortably, but had stopped squirming, as he turned, Harry saw why. Tom had a kitchen knife pressed close enough to his throat, to worry anyone who wanted to live. He had his eyes closed, and there was a tautness to his body, the sort that only exists in hyperbolic films with more style than substance, the sort that seemed almost unrealistic to the average eye.  
Tom had, somehow, cottoned on to the fact that someone was there, perhaps he had heard the door. Either way, he was turning, just slowly, and the boy was turning with him. By the time he was facing Harry, the light that inched through the gap above the curtains, formed a halo around his head, alighting him and crowning him with angel-fire. The boy though remained swathed in the shadows, squirming and scared, and though Harry was all the way across the room, he could see the newfound desperation, that moment’s hope of salvation, clear in the boy’s eyes. He thought he was going to be freed, that Harry was going to be the one to save his life, when in reality, Harry already knew, he was the reason that it was condemned.  
The three of them just stood in silence, waiting for an action, eyes all locked together, the boy’s on Harry’s, and Harry’s on Tom. Tom had that half-curved smile back at the corner of his mouth, and there were no regrets to be found anywhere on him for to him. That switched had flicked back, and that nastiness that he kept so well concealed was back in control again. He moved the knife a little, just running it over the boy’s throat, smiling as he did so.  
It was then, when they were standing in the half-dark, and Tom just shifting slightly, that the boy’s full profile came into view, and Harry realised, he recognised that boy in the yellow jumper. It was Cedric. Harry felt his mouth say the name, just as Tom slid the knife through Cedric's skin like it was no more than the plastic film covering the raw meat in supermarket packaging. 

~ 

Harry was out of the bedroom door and into the bathroom before Tom or even Cedric had any chance to say or do anything. Out the door and into the bathroom and leaning over the toilet basin, hands clenched against the rim, heaving. He could almost hear the blood dripping down Cedric’s throat, pooling at his collarbone, staining that pretty jumper. People would know how he died, they would know that it was messy, they would know they he had felt pain, but would they know that Tom had smiled? Would they realise that the last thing Cedric had ever heard was Tom’s voice in his ear, and the last thing he felt was something slicing into his neck?  
Just leaning against the cool porcelain, Harry breathed deeply, wishing that he could vomit, that he could convince himself that it was disgusting. But he couldn’t. All because somewhere inside him, he wasn’t disgusted; if anything, he was curious. Curious to know what it felt like to die. Well actually, he didn’t want to know what it was like to die, he wanted to see it. He wanted had to stay, kneel by Cedric’s side and watch him die, watch every last second of it, whilst simultaneously watching Tom, seeing how he reacted to such gorgeous death.  
A sob scraped at the back of his throat, hopeless and useless and just pathetic. Some attempt to vocalise all the things that he was feeling, all the things that were so monstrous that they had no words to describe them. Everything he wanted was wrong, but he couldn’t let it go, not anymore. It scratched at the insides of his mouth, desperate dry sobs. Maybe Tom could hear them, maybe he didn’t care for them. Maybe to Tom, they were all just hearts, just beating heart inside bodies for no reason at all, except for him to take out. Just hearts with no purpose and no meaning; Cedric wasn’t just a heart. Not that Harry would really know, Cedric hadn’t been a close friend, he had barely been an acquaintance. He was no more known to Harry that Ginevra had been, and yet, it agonised his heart to think that Cedric was currently dying twenty steps away, and he was sitting here, doing nothing  
If he thought about it, Harry knew he must have only met Cedric a few dozen times in his life. He was, as far as Harry was aware, a university student who and volunteered on Saturdays at a charity shop that Harry occasionally went to when he was bored of being alone.  
Cedric had a lovely smile, no malice at all to be had inside him. If Harry had been braver, they might have talked, they might have got to know one another, for all he knew, they might have fallen in love. But instead, he had watched from afar as Cedric smiled at other people, as he spoke with words that sounded intelligent, and actions that smooth and elegant. He was just the sort of person that would love a little too easily and a little too much. The type that would give away his whole heart in return for a smile. He wouldn’t anymore. Tom had cut out that smile, and that warmth, and that love. Whatever it was that had offended him, would never again sprout from Cedric’s body.  
Other than Harry’s breathing, still too fast, there was no other sound in the apartment. The low whine that he had entered to was over, and death pervaded the air. It was a painful sort of silence, unnerving to the point that he was glancing to the door, not sure what he was expecting to see.  
When nothing appeared, Harry sat back with his head against the wall. There were so many thoughts flashing through his head, tying themselves together, morphing and mutating into something truly horrendous. His imagination, infinitely worse than the reality, spreading like an infection through his head. The sound of the knife gliding on skin was on repeat all over his mind, punctuated only, with the squelch of metal going into meat, cutting Cedric open when he was still alive to feel it, but too dead to do anything. Just imagining the coldness of Cedric’s eyes, staring, because that was what Tom had said. _They hate watching you drag bits of them out_. That sob in the back of his throat returned, as he thought of Tom pulling Cedric’s heart out, like it was nothing. Harry heaved again. Fingers weak and shaking against the porcelain, until he just gave up. Let his head hang forward until it hit the cold surface and he was shivering and alone and shaking his head like that would make the bad thoughts go away. It didn’t, no matter how many times he shook his head, it didn’t. All that was burned into his mind was himself in Tom’s place. It hung there, heavy, throbbing. The blood settled on his fingers and his clothes, just like it had been before when he was younger. Even as he stared down now, looked at his own hands, seeing that they were so clean, he couldn’t help but question whether they truly were. After all, he was the one who had just stood there, watching and not stopping Tom. He hadn’t done anything, and because of his apathy, someone had died. 

~

Harry didn’t know how long he sat there, curled up between the toilet and the wall, wondering about his own morality, his own reasoning, his own life, and how much it was really worth. Tom had not joined him. Harry would like to think that it was out of guilt, that he understood that he had hurt him, even if he hadn’t meant to. Really though, it had been an inevitability. One day, it would have happened, how could it not when he was slowly assimilating his life with Tom’s so completely?  
Harry was calmer now, leaning back against the wall again, and slowly unfurling his legs. The tightness of pins and needles spread up the skin, prickling and making him wince. There was a twinge of guilt in his stomach. Cedric was dead, and yet his biggest concern was the pins and needles in his feet. But it was only a twinge now. The shock of seeing someone die after so long of pretending that they didn’t do that, had taken him by surprise. Years of believing that death was a lie had made him believe false things, things that no matter how much he wanted them to be, were not real. The suddenness of such a death had jolted him awake again, like being splashed with cold water whilst sunbathing on a hot day. Shocking and unpleasant, but now he was wide awake, seeing the world for what it was, and all the monster that dwelt so plainly in it.  
Without realising, Harry had been drowning. Slowly sinking beneath the murky surface of life, swallowing water and disappearing from sight; becoming no more than a husk, just like everybody else in this world, just one of the masses, when he was meant to stand out. Tom had offered him a hand when he crudely showed him what laid beneath his facade, when he had held his chin, and made him look. That had been the first eye-opener, but Harry had rejected him. He wasn’t rejecting him anymore. Now he was reaching out, waiting for Tom to grab his hand and pull him from the water, to let him breath clearly, see clearly, live clearly like he hadn’t done for a long time. 

~

Harry stood in the shower, facing the white walls, feeling the water that he knew was too hot, hitting against his back. There were no sounds as far he could hear. Though he wasn’t sure what sorts of noises he was expecting, it wasn’t as though Tom would chop up his bodies with a chainsaw and loudly proclaim his endeavours to the entire building. But it still seemed too quiet, like something as intense as death should have more of an impact on those who felt it.  
When Harry turned away from the wall, he started. Tom was standing on the other side of the steamed-up glass. The sort of image that could have made it into a Hitchcock film, all threatening and ominous and just dripping in that sensual horror that Harry was finding himself, more and more attracted to. Though, unlike the last time that a situation like this had come about, Harry wasn’t scared, not at all. Whatever dread had existed before, was now replaced with an electric sort of fear, and the lovely threat of knowing what Tom could do, so perfectly intertwined with knowing that he wouldn’t do it to him. It was an intoxicating mixture, like having a monster on a leash. Such a creature hidden behind a veil of smiles that he only raised for Harry.  
Tom was smiling now, as he opened the shower door and stepped inside, not caring to take off his clothes.  
It was a small shower, but Harry still went as close to the wall as he could, somehow embarrassed to be seen like this, he folded his arms and twisted a little trying to cover the fact he was naked in the shower, like a normal person, and so unlike Tom.  
Harry didn’t take his eyes off him, even though the streaming water-rainbows tainted his vision. Tom was still smiling, and there was blood on his fingers, and blood on his hands, and blood on his clothes. It was speckled up by his neck, so gentle that, at first glance, it would almost be mistaken for freckles. But on his hands, there could be no mistaking what it was, there was just too much red. Too thick and too ingrained to possibly be anything else. His hands were just coated in it, just coated in someone else. It made Harry swallow with a mixture of apprehension and anticipation. This was his every dream if he would just let it be so. If he would just forget his moral decency, forget his decency at all. If he could bear to let his morality slide with the water out of his bones and down the drain and into the void, then this could truly be _something_.  
Tom didn’t move. He just stood there, the water creeping up his shirt and splashing his legs. This was the polar opposite of what it had been when it had all begun; when Harry had first watched him, he would, and could, never have seen what chaos lay beneath the calm, what currents lay beneath the glass of the ocean. But now he had seen, the evidence was standing before him, soaked and bloodied, and absolutely beautiful. The power that Tom normally ached had now magnified, intensified until was filling the air like the water’s steam, curling down into Harry’s lungs as he breathed; he wanted to taste it. He wanted to feel everything that Tom was on the edge of his tongue. He wanted just to know what it felt like to kiss someone with _that_ much power in the tips of their fingers, that little morality inside them, and, of course, that much control over other people’s lives.  
So, when Tom stepped closer, came right under the heavy stream of water, and touched his fingers to Harry’s face, Harry didn’t stop him. If anything, he leaned closer to Tom’s touch, encouraged him to trace the edges of his features with his blunt nails, drawing long red lines that were washed away in an instant. Harry had never appreciated that water could hide so many crimes. But it could, and as they stood there, it did. The red was mesmerising to watch as it dripped down Tom’s clothes, staining perfect lines of horror because it wasn’t just red. Harry knew that this wasn’t red-wine sauce or paint or lipstick, this was blood. This was the insides of other people, and Tom wore it like a crown. 

~

Tom’s fingers smoothed his hair back, and Harry could feel the slickness of the blood. If he looked down, he could see it, pooling on the white plastic floor. Tom followed his gaze, and together they watched the water turn and dance, twirling a last pirouette as it disappeared down the drain.  
“Harry, I’m sorr– ”  
Before Tom could finish, Harry kissed him. It was just an urge, a temporary need to do this, to feel such a monster with his hands and his mouth. To understand if Tom was truly any different; if there was really something wrong about him; to discover whether he was a creature that wore human skin, or whether he was just a perfect human with an atrocious secret.  
In that moment, it didn’t matter that the water was hitting his closed eyes, or that it fell into every crack between them, slowly, ever so slowly washing away Tom’s misdemeanours. His deviances that Harry was quickly coming to understand were also his deviancies. It felt too profound an understanding to come in the shower, to suddenly realise that he was abnormal, more than most people, and that he simply didn’t care. If embracing such abnormality meant embracing Tom, then he could live with it, then he could live with himself for all that it entailed.  
Tom seemed to notice this sudden change. Though Harry doubted he thought that it was sudden, probably, Tom had known since the very beginning, before even Harry did, that eventually, he would accept that this was who he was, and what was the point in shying away when someone was offering him the perfect opportunity to indulge.  
That was probably why Tom accepted the advance, because it was inevitable. That was why when one of them, and Harry wasn’t sure who, clicked the shower off, they kept kissing. That was why Harry didn’t complain that Tom’s clothes were wet even when he was lying on top of him on the bed. This was love, in its most rotten form, the sort that the society wished did not exist but could not eradicate. This was just rawness and beauty, a profound understanding of his human nature that Harry had never felt possible before. He had never imagined that out there in the world, there was someone who understood him, and completed him, and wanted him, but least of all had he believed that one day he would find that person. That he would be lying on his back, not caring that there was probably a corpse sitting on the other side of the bookcase door. Nor did he care that it probably had a hole where its heart should be. Rather, all that mattered was that Tom, this person that so took away other people’s hearts, was so willing to give Harry his.  
It was selfish and cruel and ever so wrong, but for once in his life, Harry genuinely didn’t care. All he wanted was something for himself. All he really wanted was to feel the drag of Tom’s fingers, the softness of his lips and the roughness of his wet shirt as he mouthed down Harry’s ribcage. Taking his time, even when neither of them really wanted him to. This was what they simply had both been waiting for their whole lives, someone who knew what it was like to want things they shouldn’t, to want them, and to be a little scared of them, but ultimately to come and indulge themselves with them.  
Just kissing imperfect kisses, too gentle or too messy, too many teeth or too few. Harry laughing into Tom’s neck and telling him to take off his wet clothes before they both got pneumonia and all this discovery was rendered useless. Tom did as he asked, and as Harry watched, propped up on his elbows, he understood that monsters didn’t always look like monsters, sometimes they were angels, almost too perfect to be true. Almost. As Tom climbed back on top of him, still kissing too gentle, like he might break, Harry knew that he could come to live with an angel-monster, as long as it was Tom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a couple of ideas to continue to extend this further, but I'm not sure whether I will, as I have other projects that I'm currently focusing on, but maybe one day?


End file.
